“Democrats are bullish about the November elections... But remembering 2016 causes some of them to wake up in the middle of the night wondering what could go wrong." One Democratic strategist remains “concerned that President Trump will try to bait Democrats into a false debate on abolishing ICE instead of a real debate on GOP efforts to abolish protections for people with preexisting conditions."

Bloomberg

Moreover, “to state the overly obvious, you have to actually win in close elections to take at least 218 seats and control of the House. While these special elections are often held up as proof that a blue wave is building, they remind us exactly how big that wave has to be... some of the less remembered results over the past two years, where there was fleeting excitement about potential Democratic upsets that didn’t pay off, should sound a warning for the party: Victory is not guaranteed."

From the Right

The right is worried, but remains hopeful about Republicans’ electoral prospects.

“Elections are decided not by those who answer polls, or those who complain loudly on social media, but by those who actually show up and vote... The hard reality for Democrats is that they have a harder time than do Republicans in getting voters who show up for presidential elections to turn out for midterm elections. This fall’s outcome will turn on whether 2018 is different."

Wall Street Journal

“The endless stream of Trump atrocities large and small talked about on Sunday morning TV is not what voters were talking about... [Out here] social media is for kids and cats, marches for folks who don’t have to work a weekend job. Racism and pronouns matter, but only after figuring out how to pay for health care... If Democrats insist on November being [a referendum on Trump]... they may not like the answer that voters give."

The American Conservative

“Ever since Ronald Reagan refashioned the modern Republican Party on the three-legged stool of social, fiscal and foreign-policy conservatism, liberals have complained that social conservatism drives the white working class to vote against its own economic interests... The irony is that it is now Democrats who are using cultural appeals to persuade a demographic group—college-educated suburbanites—to vote against their own economic interests."

Wall Street Journal

Some argue that Republicans need to “create a national message that defines a set of big choices that contrast the Republican positions and those of the left... such as favoring work over welfare, paychecks over food stamps, safe and orderly immigration over dangerous borderless chaos, personal health versus bureaucratic health."

Fox News

Others, however, posit that Republicans “really need to bereturning to the established law which maintains that all politics is local. The Democrats have a huge story arc to lean on from a national perspective, summoning up the #RESIST movement to drive their base to the polls. But if the GOP is going to stop the bleeding, it’s going to be done one battle at a time, district by district.”

71 percent of Democratic women said they are “very motivated” to vote, vs. 69% of Republican women, 68 percent of Republican men, and 63 percent of Democratic men. A difference of two percentage points between Democratic and Republican women is hardly a “turbocharge.”

Moreover, the same difference of two percentage points is cast very differently when comparing Republicans and Democrats overall: “Just as many Republicans (69 percent) overall as Democrats (67 percent) are very energized.”